Disability Insurance 101 Articles

The Provider Choice individual disability insurance policy offered by Guardian through its wholly owned stock subsidiary Berkshire Life Insurance Company of America, is designed to be the most flexible disability insurance policy on the market. The Provider Choice policy was released for availability
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Disability insurance is a very technical type of insurance policy that protects your most valuable asset – your income. For many people, some level of disability insurance is provided through their job. For those that are self-employed, or want to supplement what their employer provides, they’ll
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The Serious Illness Supplement Benefit is an endorsement to your disability policy that pays an additional 50% of your monthly disability benefit if your total disability was solely due to cancer, stroke or heart attack. This added benefit is payable for up to 12 months during the life of your disability
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The Unemployment Waiver of Premium Rider1 is an optional rider that waives your premium payments for your disability insurance during a period of unemployment. The main benefit of the Unemployment Waiver of Premium rider is that you remain eligible for disability benefits while you are unemployed and
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We are all living longer and do not have the luxury of a big business providing a fat pension for us when we retire. So, we must all save for retirement on our own (sometimes your company may help by matching your contributions, or by providing a small pension at retirement). Another possible retirement
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Student loan debt is a crisis of epic proportion! At this time, student loan debt is the second highest consumer debt category - behind only mortgage debt. We Americans continue to borrow at unprecedented levels to continue or education. In fact, there are more than 44 million borrowers with $1.3 trillion
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You’ve probably heard that if you rely on your income to pay your bills, you should have a disability insurance policy to protect those earnings. This is the cornerstone of a good financial plan. Unfortunately, many people who don’t have a plan at work don’t buy a policy due to the
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Partial disability benefits are one of the most important aspects to an individual disability insurance policy. If you’ve been shopping for a policy, you’ve probably heard the term own occupation. While getting a policy that pays you if you can’t do the duties of your own occupation
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Every mother-to-be dreams of what the future will hold with your new bundle of joy and you want to do everything you can to assure it will be the best possible future. While no one plans to have a complicated or difficult pregnancy and or delivery, it happens and you want to be prepared for this. New
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I have been in the business for over 20 years and have seen and heard more than most about good and bad DI policies and companies. My goal is to help the consumer understand the importance and benefit of making sure that they are covered with an extremely important feature that should be, but is not
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We have been focusing on the sale of individual disability insurance since 1997. In that time, we’ve been able to help tens of thousands of clients protect their income. One question that comes up frequently when advising a client on how to design their coverage is – What optional riders
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There are many ways to purchase a policy. Before the advent of the internet, people who wanted to buy a disability insurance policy met with their local agent who presented them with a quote from their preferred carrier. An application was taken and a few weeks later, the client had a policy to protect
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In 2014, my office submitted over 1,100 applications for individual long term disability insurance with major insurance companies. In doing so, I’ve seen many mistakes that people make once they’ve decided to buy a policy to protect their income. I’d like to share the top 3, and why
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What is a Benefit Period? The Benefit Period is the maximum length of time a policy will pay benefits for a continuous disability. Berkshire Life offers several different benefit period options: To Age 67To Age 65To Age 70Graded Lifetime Benefits10 Years5 Years2 YearsHow Do I Know Which Option To Use?
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Insuring your life's worth of income against a disability is one of the most important decisions that you will make and should be considered very thoughtfully! You need to thoroughly evaluate and understand the policies that you are considering. You do not want to be surprised at claim time (when
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Berkshire’s disability insurance policy offers many optional riders1, and on this website you can see what the most popular optional riders are for Berkshire’s policies. The second most common rider chosen by consumers today is the Future Increase Option Rider2, with over 62% of applicants
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Well, the policies and companies that offer coverage vary dramatically, so there is no simple answer. It would be wise to work with a specialist who either solely, or mostly, focuses on disability insurance. Much like a doctor with a specialty- you want to work with a specialist to fix your specific
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Individual disability insurance can be a difficult financial product to fully understand, as no two policies are the same at any insurance company. If you are shopping for a policy for yourself, you may have seen the term “Non-Cancellable & Guaranteed Renewable” already. Hopefully I
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If you have ever shopped for disability insurance, you may have been surprised at the cost. It is not cheap, and typically costs between 1-3% of your annual income depending on various factors such as age, occupation, benefit amount, and elimination period. Many people mistakenly compare the
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Probably the single most important insurance coverage one can have is Disability Insurance. This product helps to protect you from a sickness or injury that inhibits your ability to work and earn a paycheck. If you become totally disabled with no protection, you may likely be financially decimated!
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You own a car and you bought auto insurance. Why? Because it is required by law. You own a house and have a mortgage. You bought homeowners insurance. Why? Because the lender required it. You have a family and you bought life insurance. Why? Because you want to make sure that if you pass away
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Stop!!! If you are like many people shopping for a personal disability insurance policy you may have the attitude of “I don’t care about whether or not my DI policy covers mental and nervous disabilities! It’s never going to happen to me, or I’m not crazy.” You should
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Many consumers often make the mistake of choosing an inexpensive disability insurance policy and ignoring the written terms and provisions that are frequently found within inexpensive policies. Inexpensive policies can often end up costing the disabled insured a lot of benefits once a claim arises because
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Disability insurance rates are dependent on many different components in a policy. The inexpensive policies available are typically the ones that pay out fewer benefits in fewer situations. The inexpensive policies may actually cost you more because of benefits not paid because of restrictive terms
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Disability insurance, in my opinion, is the most important insurance you can ever own. After all, for most people their ability to work and earn a living is by far their biggest asset. Maybe you feel the same way. Your job did not offer a group long-term disability policy so you purchased one
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A Cost of Living adjustment (COLA) rider is an important feature in a disability insurance policy because it helps your benefits keep pace with inflation during a claim. How much of an adjustment you would receive and when the first adjustment occurs depends on which Cost of Living Adjustment rider
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Terminology for individual long-term disability coverage options and contract provisions can seem rather confusing to someone conducting their initial research only from quotes, sample policies. Let’s analyze a very important component of any policy- the elimination period. What is it and why
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Provide Extra Funds During Severe Illness or Injury Funds for Added Flexibility - A devastating illness or accident can leave you needing extra assistance. The Catastrophic Disability Benefit (CAT) provides extra funds so you’ll have the flexibility to do things such as hire help and pay for items
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This convenient, no-cost rider helps keep your disability benefit aligned with normal, annual income increases you might experience when healthy. It’s applied automatically at the time of underwriting to eligible policies and provides an annual 4% benefit increase each year for six years, with
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